2014 Austrian Grand Prix

Their cars were running first and second at the end of the first stint yet come the chequered flag they had slipped to third and fourth behind the Mercedes drivers.

Williams began to lose their grip on the lead when they waited three laps before responding to Mercedes’ first pit stop, despite their pace worsening as their super-soft tyres wore down.

Felipe Massa had a slow in-lap at his first pit stop and was not alert to an attack from Lewis Hamilton at turn one, so that having led the race he immediately fell behind both Mercedes.

He was also jmped by Valtteri Bottas, who managed to hold position between the two Mercedes drivers when he came out of the pits – partly thanks to having the fastest pit stop of the race on lap 15.

Though helped by an error from Rosberg, Bottas had fallen two seconds behind the Mercedes driver by lap 38. Now Mercedes brought Hamilton in first and while Bottas waited three laps to come in – one lap longer than the team intended him to due to a miscommunication – Hamilton easily made up the time he needed to get ahead.

Williams had been sceptical that drivers would be able to ‘undercut’ their rivals while running on the soft tyre in the second two stints of the race. Afterwards Bottas said the team would have to examine the data to see whether a potential win had got away from them.

“We need to always – like we always do – we need to analyse if there’s anything we could have done better,” said Bottas. “It’s difficult to say.”

“Today it was difficult to know the real difference between the [super-soft] and [soft] because the [soft] tyre has been taking quite a long time to warm up so we really thought it would be really difficult to undercut because it takes many laps to warm up and get a good pace after the super-soft tyre.”

Given their form this year it’s understandable Williams might have preferred avoiding taking any risks. But the data suggests they could have wasted less time on the super-soft tyres earlier in the race and pressed Mercedes a bit harder. Though a win was always going to be a tall order, they might have avoiding having both their cars passed by both Mercedes.

Austrian Grand Prix lap chart

The positions of each driver on every lap. Use the controls below to show/hide different drivers:

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/charts/2014drivercolours.csv

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Felipe Massa

1

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5

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Valtteri Bottas

2

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Nico Rosberg

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Fernando Alonso

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Daniel Ricciardo

5

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Kevin Magnussen

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15

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Daniil Kvyat

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18

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Kimi Raikkonen

8

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14

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Lewis Hamilton

9

4

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7

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Nico Hulkenberg

10

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12

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Jenson Button

11

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Sebastian Vettel

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Pastor Maldonado

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Jean-Eric Vergne

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Sergio Perez

15

11

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2

1

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Adrian Sutil

16

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Esteban Gutierrez

17

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9

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Jules Bianchi

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Kamui Kobayashi

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Marcus Ericsson

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Max Chilton

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Romain Grosjean

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Austrian Grand Prix race chart

The gaps between each driver on every lap. Use the controls below to show/hide different drivers:

I think they went safe because they wanted points which, from their perspective, was the smart thing to do. They never expected Hamilton to be there so fast I guess. They tried a 2-3 but because of Hamilton his lighting start got a solid 3-4 gaining them 27 points. Good day in the office for a team, mind you, that scored 5 points all last season.

I think that Bottas should have made his last stop one or two laps earlier. Hamilton’s pit stop was slow, it was a mistake not to react in time. With their top speed I think they could have kept a second place.
They played it safe, which is a shame for us, but it was the obvious thing to do from their side.

Williams should have pitted earlier than Mercedes to maintain their track advantage. With their incredible top-speeds they had a very realistic chance to keep the Mercedes’ behind. At least it was worth trying, as they couldn’t have done worse than 3rd and 4th anyway.

I’m not very sure. I believe that if Massa had pitted 3 laps earlier it would cost him at the end of the race. If you see his final 10 laps vs Alonso, Massa’s tyres were falling off the cliff, and Alonso could pose a threat.

Pitting earlier than Merc could help Bottas though, he seemed to preserve his tyres better.

Alonso claimed Massa was simply playing with him, so he was not really in trouble. Besides: the Williams’ were incredibly difficult to overtake, so even if they were in trouble, they possibly could still hang on to their positions. In any way Williams could have split strategies, with Bottas covering the Mercedes and Massa staying out longer.

I am so exited for Silverstone. If Willliams is able to keep up and race with the Merc’s, i think we might have some exiting races in the future. If this happens, i can’t wait for Valtteri and Felipe to win a race.